AL East Notes: Red Sox, Headley, Yankees

The Red Sox are faced with a problem unique to big-market teams, John Tomase of the Boston Herald writes. That question is how to spend all their money. Baseball has clamped down on spending on amateur talent, and the Angels' recent example shows the problems inherent in free-agent spending sprees. The Red Sox will have plenty of money coming off the books next offseason, perhaps giving them $50MM with which to spend. The Red Sox haven't spent heavily on top free agents recently, letting Jacoby Ellsbury depart and not signing Brian McCann. But Tomase suggests they'll continue to spend to add depth and build a "strong middle class." They could also look to extend their own stars, perhaps including Jon Lester and/or David Ortiz. Here are more notes from the AL East.

The Yankees have not made any recent attempts to trade for Padres third baseman Chase Headley, Andy Martino of the New York Daily News tweets. Yesterday's news confirmed that Alex Rodriguez will be out for the entire 2014 season, but the Yankees could well go with their existing options at third.

Kelly Johnson and Eduardo Nunez could receive significant innings at third base this year, Yankees assistant GM Billy Eppler tells Martino. "We’ll look left, we’ll look right, we’ll look under rocks and see if something can work itself out and makes sense," says Eppler. "But with Kelly Johnson, who we spoke to earlier in the season … before we came to an agreement with him, we talked to him about playing third base … as well as second base and there’s outfield."